Age of Sail naval warfare game

[DennisS]

I played Pirates of the Burning Sea for about a year. I love the genre, and I would love for this game to be a success.

Problem with these types of games is that the twitch crowd gets bored easily, and having ships move at 60 knots to increase the excitement level destroys the sedate pace and strategizing that old farts like me want.

[Nefaro]

I played Pirates of the Burning Sea for about a year. I love the genre, and I would love for this game to be a success.

"You want buy big ship?"   ;D  (the beginning of some gold farmer chat spam that started while still in closed beta and continued on through release  ::)  )


I played for a couple months and then lost interest shortly after reaching max level and getting sick of planning ahead for port battles but possibly lose the lottery drawing to get in.  I came back a couple times, but I seem to recall some of the changes being rather annoying.  Nevertheless, I rank it as one of the more interesting MMOs and still wish it had been advanced in a better manner.  The player-run economy relied so heavily on long strings of different accounts to work in unison that it self imploded at some point and from then on it became a painful experience, when I tried it a third time, due to the demand outweighing the supply.  As an after note, the graphics and interface were a bit primitive too.

Problem with these types of games is that the twitch crowd gets bored easily, and having ships move at 60 knots to increase the excitement level destroys the sedate pace and strategizing that old farts like me want.

I didn't consider PotBS a twitch game.  The naval battles weren't all that fast.  It sure wasn't a frosty Age Of Sail 2 sim pace but it was slow enough that it still kept the feel of the thing and allowed for some strategy.  This upcoming one sounds like it will be more 'sim' than PotBS, however.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

New video up showing a 1v1 Frigate duel.  You can see the player taking manual control of the sail yards and manipulating their angles to catch or spill more wind.   The pacing seems reasonable to me.  I think it look pretty good.  Hopefully they'll add marines and sharpshooters to the rigging and work more on the damage modelling but I think it looks promising.

[MengJiao]

New video up showing a 1v1 Frigate duel.  You can see the player taking manual control of the sail yards and manipulating their angles to catch or spill more wind.   The pacing seems reasonable to me.  I think it look pretty good.  Hopefully they'll add marines and sharpshooters to the rigging and work more on the damage modelling but I think it looks promising.

  Wow!  Weird, but promising.  The basic problem seems to be there's no momentum so you can't actually tack and the rudder seems to have no effect so the steering is by turning the front sails.  Oddly the outcomes are not that bad, they just look very strange.  I am mystified by having a sailing game where the ships don't really sail -- why not just have ironclads?

   Oh well.  Maybe they can fix it up.  At the moment I just don't get the reasons for having sails in the game.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

They seemed to sail alright as far as I could tell.  Wind direction, sail state, yard angle and speed were all clearly indicated down in the bottom left of the screen.

[MengJiao]

They seemed to sail alright as far as I could tell.  Wind direction, sail state, yard angle and speed were all clearly indicated down in the bottom left of the screen.

  Sure, but they didn't make much sense.  For example sailing very near the wind at 80% of your top speed isn't likely. In fact I don't think a ship rigged like those are could sail that close to the wind at all.

   Even odder -- they can get close to the wind, but they cannot tack from what I saw.  Perhaps that's just as well since the earlier versions could tack but it was just a turn past the wind (not possible).

   So things were fine: reaching, heeling, wearing, backing up and in some cases even the speeds were okay.  All-in-all very promising.

   Plus of course, a ship could not change sail states (4 different ones, with shifting the yards in say 30 seconds) that fast.

[sandman2575]

I just don't see the need for this.  Are you seriously trying to tell me that CA didn't already nail age of sails warfare in Empire TW??

(... ;))

[MengJiao]

I just don't see the need for this.  Are you seriously trying to tell me that CA didn't already nail age of sails warfare in Empire TW??

(... ;))

Well, they did try sort of.  In fact, looking at this Naval Action (not a bad title) alpha made me want to go look at sea battles in Fall of the Shogun..which were nice in some ways. (wow...I meant Fall of the Samuri)

With sailing warship games there are so many problems that a game featuring steam power, but with a dose of realism (which we have never really seen) would seem like the best solution.

With sailing warship games you have the following massive problems:

1) you need to get some kind of sailing model working -- outside of sailing simulations, I have not seen a digital game with a good sailing model
2) apparently you have to model the accepted fighting model -- which seems to be wrong even in board games (eg. the best tactic is not to aim at the hull -- that is the end point of doing everything else exactly right -- ie if you have the luxury of aiming at the hull, you have already won the fight)
3) Suppose (against all odds) you modelled the above two perfectly PERFECTLY -- no one but me would understand the game and even I might find it very confusing most of the time PLUS the game-hating industry would have two perfect hate-targets:

1) the counter-intuitive sailing model (it would be counter-intuitive unless you knew how to sail a good-sized boat)
2) the ahistorical combat model (because the standard histories completely misrepresent combat under sail)

So anything outside of a rather arcadey combat under sail game is not likely to be good or popular -- so I wish they would just do a decent steam-powered warship game instead.

[Nefaro]

I'm sure this is still in early Alpha.  I doubt it will be modelled well for awhile yet, so it's probably not worth evaluating anything until further down the line.

[MengJiao]

I'm sure this is still in early Alpha.  I doubt it will be modelled well for awhile yet, so it's probably not worth evaluating anything until further down the line.

But there's already a fine pseudohistorical line going on the Naval Action site and we are already being told:

Not really... any gun fire at sea aimed at range greater than 400m was practically a waste of shot and powder... besides, large Ships of the Line had quite thick hulls, you needed heavy guns to penetrate them... everything below 18pdrs was considered inadequate to penetrate the hull of Ship of the Line...  shooting at greater range was possible, yet effects were minimal, mostly hitting sails.. French and Spanish usually opened fire at 400m, British usually held the fire until very close.. (pistol range)

Fortunately the developers are not going to ensure pseudohistorical results and their gunnery system will allow you to make useful
hits at distances greater than pointblank range.

[MengJiao]

^I hope so.

Boats (from the Naval Action site):

Early access edition will feature these ships



1. Naval Cutter

2. Schooner

3. Light Brig

4. Royal armed Yacht from pre-order package

5. Heavy Corvette

6. Snow

7. Medium Frigate

8. Super-Frigate

9. 64 gun 4th rate

10. 74

11. First rate

[Jack Nastyface]

Hmm...I don't think I could play an age-of-sail game where the British lose to the French  :P
But seriously...I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that realistically simulating age-of-sail naval warfare is unlikely, and we will must needs be satisfied with pseudo-historic games designed with low-to-moderate complexity.  Although the era is incredibly colourful and interesting, many age-of-sail battles are little more than massive slug-fests between giant wooden behemoths.  When you try to play this out in board game (like Sails of Glory) or computer game, this mostly equates to getting in close, hoping for a lucky shot that causes critical damage or a completely ahistorical quick maneouver, and then battering your opponent into submission.  While this can be fun (especially if you use some kind of ersatz flag-signalling system between players, like in Close Action), there are few surprises.  Compare this vis-a-vis something like Wings of Glory, where smart or risky maneuvering can turn what looks like an imminent defeat into an exciting victory.
Considering that I have probably owned nine or ten age-of-sail games (board and PC), and my on-line "tag" is taken from that era, no-one is more surprised than me that I am casting doubt upon this genre.
Yours in gaming,
Jack Nastyface

[MengJiao]

Considering that I have probably owned nine or ten age-of-sail games (board and PC), and my on-line "tag" is taken from that era, no-one is more surprised than me that I am casting doubt upon this genre.
Yours in gaming,
Jack Nastyface

  I think the genre has its problems, but not so much because of simplifications, but because until recently, there were no good analyses of what the dynamics of an age of sail naval battle really were.  It's odd -- but like many things, the interesting reality was buried under a century of glib and dull imagery.  But people are now reading Willis and all will be well and with some of the real excitment of those battles.

  One thing worth bearing in mind was that the Royal Navy had a tough time from say 1700 - 1794 and really did not gain total superiority until after 1794.  If you go over every major action from say 1700 to 1794, you'll find many very close battles that were not simple slugfests and that had plenty of wild moments.

[Jack Nastyface]

Hey Meng,
Good post, and good points.  I agree that there are lots of interesting moments in naval warfare in the era you mention (1700 - 1790), but aside from the AWI, much of this gets ignored in digital games.  The Russo-Turkish war featured some savage "take no prisoners" fighting, whereas at the battle of Hogland(?)(Russia vs Sweden), ships were pulled into firing position by longboats. Of course, many events in the life of Capt. Cochrane (upon which the Master and Commander book series draws from) would make for some great gaming.


What I find interesting / annoying is that each age of sail game I have ever played has had some really good features, but no-one has ever built a best of breed.  IIRC, The very arcade-y Pirates! was one of few (only?) games that featured ships flying false flags to lure you into combat (a common tactic during the era).  Man of War II: Chains of Command (still one of my all time favorites) featured flag signals, and limited repair capabilities (fires and flooding, only).  Privateers Bounty had lots of ships, scenarios and campaigns, and even a "ship design" tool.  I think only Pirates II featured engagements versus shore-based structures (I think that ship vs land combat was borked in Privateers Bounty), and none of them had working shallows / grounding.


Two of the most recent offerings in table-top games - Trafalgar, by Warhammer Historical, and Sails of Glory, by Ares - are really designed for the casual naval warfare gamer.  Trafalgar has ship and fleet "upgrades" that work almost like power-ups, and Sails of Glory allows you to play two movement cards in order to perform the nautical equivalent of a hammerhead stall / bootlegger reverse.


For my money, I will probably stick with Flying Colors for squadron actions, and Close Action for ship-to-ship stuff.  I know you have posted about some challenges with Flying Colors, but I'm not sure what else is out there.  Perhaps I should look into the old but venerable Heart of Oak rules from FGU.


Signal Beat to Quarters,

Jack Nastyface

[MengJiao]

Hey Meng,
Good post, and good points.  I agree that there are lots of interesting moments in naval warfare in the era you mention (1700 - 1790), but aside from the AWI, much of this gets ignored in digital games. 

  Yeah, its an eternal puzzle as to what gets popular and what gets forgotten.  For fighting under sail you get mostly pirates (not bad, but hard to simulate at all well) and very standardized post-1800 imagery with Nelson anihilating the poor French and Spanish according to a stylized set of fairly tedious principles.  The whole of the 18th century is written off as usual as "linear" (this happens in characterizing the 18th century in other areas too -- which is a nineteenth century view and one that we should be able to get over).  As usual periods that are actually complex get written off as not having some aspect that a later period prides itself on.  I'm not expecting anything in the near future to really dig into what made 18th century naval warfare the ever-changing spectacle of disasters that it was because the past as ever-changing does not see to be a popular analytic approach -- people generally want to see the few things about the past that the have actually heard of...which are not usually very representative or enlightening, they just happen to have gotten mythologized.
  And of course, heaven forebid it should take some effort of the imagination to  get at the odd dynamics of naval battles in the 18th century -- good heavens -- you'd have to understand something about sailing a ship or shooting a canon or what have you.
   For now, Naval Action seems reasonably promising, though I think steampower would help with player comprehension -- apparently early steampower is even more lost to the imagery of the popular mind than pirates and what not.